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I'm still perplexed that Oil companies bother to advertise at all. What's the point? I'd keep a low profile if I were them. People don't really choose where

I'm still perplexed that Oil companies bother to advertise at all. What's the point? I'd keep a low profile if I were them. People don't really choose where they fill their car on the company do they? It's more dictated by price and whether the station is en route to work. Good point about Greenpeace keeping the oil companies on their toes. Sad though that it has to be this way. To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing. I'm baffled that these companies aren't behaving more responsibly.

Retric 14y ago
People did react to the Exxon Valdez oil spill which IMO woke the oil companies up as to the value of pure image advertising.
- progrock 14y ago
  There was a good TV program of a tear down of a decommissioned shell/esso rig from the North Sea oil field. On yesterday (Sun 22nd July.) Apparently there was a shift in European law, that now forces companies to tidy up after they've finished. Brought about after pressure from Greenpeace for Shell trying to ditch the Brent Spar in an underwater trough. Quite how you'd do this with anything deep sea is beyond me. Worth a watch though.
- progrock 14y ago
  There was a good TV program of a tear down of a decommissioned shell/esso rig from the North Sea oil field. On yesterday (Sun 22nd July.) Apparently there was a shift in European law, that now forces companies to tidy up after they've finished. Brought about after pressure from Greenpeace for Shell trying to ditch the Brent Spar in an underwater trough. Quite how you'd do this with anything deep sea is beyond me. Worth a watch though.
joshuahedlund 14y ago
> To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing. You might want to learn about the high costs of exploration and building rigs and wells and all the innovation that has been occurring for decades to extract greater percentages of more kinds of oil out of more kinds of places. Something like gold diggers in the 1800's might have been a lot closer to "almost money for nothing." Maybe even oil back then. But any resource that was easy enough to get for almost nothing has already been used.
- progrock 14y ago
  If Exxon made a net income of $41 billion last year (http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/whi...), then it's pretty much money for nothing. BP's deepwater disaster indicates that not enough is being done to protect the environment, it hasn't stopped risky drilling. That should never happen again. Some of those profits could be turned over into environmental preventative protection. These companies smack of pure greed to me.
  - hythloday 14y ago
    Exxon made a profit of $41bn on a turnover of $480bn - about an 8% profit margin. That's not really "money for nothing". That's a healthy return on a gargantuan investment. Some tech stocks profit margins: AAPL: ~30%, MSFT: ~30%, GOOG: ~25%. 3-4 times higher than Exxon. Do those companies all make money for nothing too?
    - hcurtiss 14y ago
      Exactly. You beat me to it. See source here, namely Tables 2 and 6: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42364.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42364.pdf Also here: http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin Note that it was closer to 5% in Q2 2009.
    - draggnar 14y ago
      But it would be much lower if these companies were held accountable for the massive environmental impacts that they have (beyond the direct impacts of a spill). Excluding things that are even "debatable" like climate change, pollution and the effects thereof are not. These socialized costs would make oil companies unprofitable.
      - ams6110 14y ago
        Those things are all very much debatable. Unfortunately reasoned debate rarely occurs, what we get instead is hyper-partisan shouting matches.
saryant 14y ago
Please look up the cost of, say, a deep water drilling rig. It is not free.
Tobu 14y ago
Re the low profile: regularly paying a large media group for ad space in exchange for no bad publicity would make sense to these companies. Large groups buy unprofitable newspapers for similar reasons.

Retric 14y ago

People did react to the Exxon Valdez oil spill which IMO woke the oil companies up as to the value of pure image advertising.

progrock 14y ago
There was a good TV program of a tear down of a decommissioned shell/esso rig from the North Sea oil field. On yesterday (Sun 22nd July.) Apparently there was a shift in European law, that now forces companies to tidy up after they've finished. Brought about after pressure from Greenpeace for Shell trying to ditch the Brent Spar in an underwater trough. Quite how you'd do this with anything deep sea is beyond me. Worth a watch though.
progrock 14y ago
There was a good TV program of a tear down of a decommissioned shell/esso rig from the North Sea oil field. On yesterday (Sun 22nd July.) Apparently there was a shift in European law, that now forces companies to tidy up after they've finished. Brought about after pressure from Greenpeace for Shell trying to ditch the Brent Spar in an underwater trough. Quite how you'd do this with anything deep sea is beyond me. Worth a watch though.

joshuahedlund 14y ago

> To me drilling for oil - is almost money for nothing. You might want to learn about the high costs of exploration and building rigs and wells and all the innovation that has been occurring for decades to extract greater percentages of more kinds of oil out of more kinds of places. Something like gold diggers in the 1800's might have been a lot closer to "almost money for nothing." Maybe even oil back then. But any resource that was easy enough to get for almost nothing has already been used.

progrock 14y ago
If Exxon made a net income of $41 billion last year (http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/whi...), then it's pretty much money for nothing. BP's deepwater disaster indicates that not enough is being done to protect the environment, it hasn't stopped risky drilling. That should never happen again. Some of those profits could be turned over into environmental preventative protection. These companies smack of pure greed to me.
- hythloday 14y ago
  Exxon made a profit of $41bn on a turnover of $480bn - about an 8% profit margin. That's not really "money for nothing". That's a healthy return on a gargantuan investment. Some tech stocks profit margins: AAPL: ~30%, MSFT: ~30%, GOOG: ~25%. 3-4 times higher than Exxon. Do those companies all make money for nothing too?
  - hcurtiss 14y ago
    Exactly. You beat me to it. See source here, namely Tables 2 and 6: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42364.pdf http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42364.pdf Also here: http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin http://ycharts.com/companies/XOM/profit_margin Note that it was closer to 5% in Q2 2009.
  - draggnar 14y ago
    But it would be much lower if these companies were held accountable for the massive environmental impacts that they have (beyond the direct impacts of a spill). Excluding things that are even "debatable" like climate change, pollution and the effects thereof are not. These socialized costs would make oil companies unprofitable.
    - ams6110 14y ago
      Those things are all very much debatable. Unfortunately reasoned debate rarely occurs, what we get instead is hyper-partisan shouting matches.

saryant 14y ago

Please look up the cost of, say, a deep water drilling rig. It is not free.

Tobu 14y ago

Re the low profile: regularly paying a large media group for ad space in exchange for no bad publicity would make sense to these companies. Large groups buy unprofitable newspapers for similar reasons.